Contents

Appearance

Squirtle is a small, light-blue Pokémon with an appearance similar to that of a turtle. Like turtles, Squirtle has a shell that covers its body with holes that allow its limbs, tail, and head to be exposed. Unlike a turtle, Squirtle is ordinarily bipedal.

Special abilities

Squirtle has the ability Torrent, which boosts the power of its water type attacks by 150%, if its health drops to 33% or below.

Squirtle also has the natural ability to shoot water from its mouth, which is where the bulk of its attacks comes from.

In the anime

The Squirtle Squad

Ash Ketchum owns a Squirtle, which he obtained in the episode Here Comes the Squirtle Squad. The Squirtle Squad was a group of Squirtle that were causing a number of disruptions in a small town. It wasn't until Ash arrived that they turned from doing bad to doing good, by becoming a firefighting squad. The leader then joined Ash, then much later returned to the squad and is currently where it is located. It does come back every now and then, to help Ash in a battle. Additionally, as revealed in the first episode, Ash wanted to have a Squirtle as his starter Pokémon.

Origins

English: Squirtle's English name can possibly both be a combination of the words "turtle", and "squirt" Turtle would be the animal it's based on off and squirt means to spray water or small, or a combination between the words 'turtle", and "squirrel" considering it's tail looks similar to a squirrel.

Japanese: ゼニガメ (Zenigame in Romaji) came from the Japanese words Zeni (銭) which means money and Kame (亀) which means turtle.

French: "Carapuce" comes from the combination of the words "carapace" (shell) and "puce"(flea) which could have been used because of the "cute" connotation that this word sometimes implies when used in French (i.e.: "puce" is often used to refer to a little girl).

Trivia

Squirtle is a playable character in the game Super Smash Bros. Brawl as one of the Pokémon Trainer's three Pokémon. Ivysaur and Charizard are the other two.

Across the many Generations, Squirtle's sprite color has changed noticeably: in Generation I it was light blue, in Generation II it was a dark shade of blue, and finally, the color scheme from Generation III and onwards is teal.

Squirtle is said to be the second most popular Pokemon, first being Pikachu.